Aside from that the country has stayed largely silent since Sunday’s nuclear test most likely to gauge the reaction from South Korea and others.

THE UNITED STATES

The Trump administration’s options are going from bad to worse as Kim Jong Un’s military marches ever closer to being able to strike the US mainland with nuclear weapons. Just as President Donald Trump seeks to show global resolve after the North’s most powerful nuclear test, his leverage is limited even further by new tensions he’s stoked with South Korea, plus continued opposition from China and Russia.

With South Korea, the country most directly threatened, Trump has taken the unusual step of highlighting disagreements between the US and its treaty ally, including by floating the possibility he could pull out of a trade deal with South Korea to protest trade imbalances. He also suggested on Twitter the two countries lacked unanimity on North Korea, faulting new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has been more conciliatory to the North, for his government’s “talk of appeasement.”

It’s an inopportune time for grievances to be aired, and on Monday the two leaders sought to show they were confronting North Korea together - and with might. The White House said that in a phone call with Moon, Trump gave approval “in principle” to lifting restrictions on South Korean missile payloads and to approving “many billions” in weapons sales to South Korea.

SOUTH KOREA

South Korea says the US military will begin adding more launchers to a contentious high-tech US missile defence system in South Korea on Thursday to better cope with North Korean threats.

Seoul’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that four launchers and construction equipment will be moved to the former golf course where the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system has been set up.

A THAAD battery normally consists of six launchers, but only two have been operational so far at the site in rural Seongju.

The placing of additional THAAD launchers will likely trigger an angry response from area residents and activists who have opposed the system.

They have raised worries over rumoured health hazards linked to the system’s powerful radar and the possibility that the town will become a target of North Korean attacks.

RUSSIA

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for talks with North Korea, saying sanctions are not a solution.

He said supporting a Russian-Chinese road map would help resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Speaking after the talks with the visiting South Korean president, Putin in televised remarks urged North Korea’s neighbours to support the Russian-Chinese roadmap. He said it “offers a genuine way to defuse the tensions and a step-by-step settlement.”

Putin made the remarks Wednesday after meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Vladivostok, Russia.